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Forum:Upgrades table
I just created an upgrades table which maybe easier to read: current version: What do you all think? Anno1404 10:43, May 30, 2010 (UTC) My big issue with it is that it is not friendly for wide display resolutions. Layouts that are overwhelmingly horizontally oriented fall victim to this: wider resolutions produce either huge areas of empty space or are difficult to read (think about why columns are used in newspapers.) This is especially important given the frequency of high resolution monitor today (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php). This is the reason the Ability and Upgrade boxes are designed to float (although not all pages take advantage of this yet, still using the old table scheme); I expect the above boxes become one row on resolutions somewhat wider than 1024 pixels. A lesser issue is modularity and flexibility (eg. what about protoss vehicles?); I can think of at least one or two ways to do it. Megatemplate (all the code to display all the upgrades for one race stuffed into one template), composite template (think of the weird way some pages use CharBox with UnitBox) disguised as a megatemplate. Another lesser issue is look and feel. Colours, internal borders, and , most importantly, how discrete units of information tend to have their own little sections with their own 'headers' or 'titles'. (Like minerals, gas, and time 'costs': they're not all in one in, say, the unit box, and even if they were, the section would be labelled 'cost' or something.) There's also the matter that it breaks the whole 'one upgrade/ability, one box' thing we have going. - Meco (talk, ) 12:08, May 30, 2010 (UTC) :Per http://starcraft.wikia.com/index.php?title=Stalker&action=edit&section=4 the current version is not side by side. I didn't think you would like it :( It is pretty much a non-starter huh? Anno1404 15:35, May 30, 2010 (UTC) Yeah, that section still uses the old static way, instead of the newer liquid way (/me goes off to fix it). Yeah, I'm still one of those 1024x768 users; it wasn't until very recently that the implications of 1024+ smacked me on the head. As for adoption, I'm not in favour. However, I'm just one sysop, the other sysops may want something else. The template at the top doesn't fit the current look and feel, but that doesn't mean the template has to change: if the other sysops like it, then maybe it means all the other templates need to change. The templates have been redone once (maybe once and a half) before, so giving them another kick over the hill isn't out of the question. (I mean, even now my last frantic attempts don't quite fit in with the nifty bluey skin Wikia provided. It's got to be fixed one time or another. But yikes, it's going to be at least another day and night without sleep. ><) - Meco (talk, ) 22:29, May 30, 2010 (UTC) I don't like the idea because a lot of upgrades happen to be abilities like Mind Control which all ought to all have their own pages ideally, if we ever get around to it (many like Spawn Broodling are just redirects currently). Having each upgrade exist as a separate template allows for it to have its own page, to be listed on the page of every unit or structure it helps out, and be listed on the structure that provides the upgrade, as well as linked to from articles that discuss strategy or need to reference those upgrades for some other reason. Keeping the old templates around is helpful because that's 1 template for every upgrade, and if you don't like the templates you can just change them but please don't combine them like this unless you also keep the separate ones too. But making these new combined templates while keeping the old ones that are separate seems like overkill to me, a bit too much in the way of templates. If you could avoid deleting the old templates for upgrades and just had a dynamic sort of template that each unit or structure page could feed data into through fields (like BattleBox, CharBox, FactionBox, UnitBox, UnitQuoteBox, WorldBox, etc.), this might work quite well, and I would not have any problem with it if you did things that way. It could actually be quite an improvement, but your current template isn't set up dynamically like the ones I just listed. The upgrade/ability templates currently in use are not set up dynamically either, but that is because the same templates appear in multiple articles and it works best to keep the data on each upgrade or ability in one place. I do not see how your template would work in multiple articles since the mix of upgrades and abilities would be unique to each structure or unit. FYI, I do use 1024x768 too, myself, so I only notice problems at that screen resolution, although I can change resolution higher or lower if absolutely necessary, anywhere from 640x480 to 2048x1536. I do encourage you to continue working on things like this if you can bear this kinda stuff in mind, just as me, a regular non-sysop fellow user who has no authority over anything here. I mean, I like the spirit behind it, and it looks OK, but I'm just worried it might ruin the perfectly sensible system of every ability/upgrade having its own template that can be used anywhere. --The Overmind 08:20, May 31, 2010 (UTC)